5. Subquestion 3

Introduction

Sub question 3: What is the difference between the shops that are situated in the different shopping streets?

Hypothesis 3: The shops are relatively similar, however in the Kalverstraat more chain shops are situated and shops have several branches in the Kalverstraat, whereas they don’t in Haarlem.

To enable ourselves to answer this sub question, we went to the Kalverstraat and the Grote Houtstraat and wrote down all names of the shops and the most important product they sell. Next we typed out all those names and categorised the products. Lastly we made tables and graph.

Comparison of Grote Houtstraat and the Kalverstraat


Click to enlarge





















To make the collected data clearer we’ve categorised it into four groups: services, shopping goods, catering and convenience goods.

Services
As expected the number of services is much higher in the Houtstraat than the Kalverstraat. Interestingly enough, in the most important shopping street of Haarlem a hairdresser and a shoe reparation store are still situated. Of course they also used to be located in the Kalverstraat, but they’ve long disappeared.

Shopping goods
For both streets the percentage of shopping goods is the highest. However, in the Kalverstraat shopping goods make up almost 91% of all the goods, in the Houtstraat only 84%. Shopping goods include all goods with a certain durability such as anything related with attire, electronics and pieces for one’s interior. Another word for shopping goods in English is comparison goods. This very clearly portrays what customers do with these goods, namely compare. For durable goods consumers want to have choice and therefore go to a street where all shops that sell a certain item are set. For example, if someone is looking for jeans, that person won’t buy the first jeans he comes across. He’ll go to many stores to be sure that he buys the best possible jeans. Hence many shops close to each other selling the same item stimulates purchase. What is interesting to notice is that in the Houtstraat shops that sell only one, rather expensive item, aren’t situated, whereas they are in the Kalverstraat. In the Kalverstraat several shops are located that sell almost only one item, such as ties or watches. On the other hand, there are two jewellers in the Houtstraat, but the percentage of jewellers in the Kalverstraat is more than twice as big. Something else remarkable is that almost all percentages of a main product related to attire are for the Kalverstraat higher to much higher than for the Houtstraat. Conversely, all non-attire main products are often higher for the Houtstraat, with telecommunication and opticians in particular.

Catering
The total percentage of catering for the Houtstraat is higher than the Kalverstraat. Also in this case catering businesses were initially situated in the Kalverstraat as well, but they have been replaced by multinationals or chain shops.

Convenience goods
This percentage is higher for the Houtstraat as well. The percentage of food is in the Houtstraat almost twice the Kalverstraat’s. Little shops with a relatively low income such as cigar shops have disappeared all together from the Kalverstraat. It’s not strange that the number of both streets for convenience goods is rather small. Because unlike shopping goods, the purchase of the goods aren’t stimulated when many similar shops are situated close to each other. On the contrary, for example supermarkets try to be as far as possible from each other, so they can obtain an own domain. One doesn’t go to several supermarkets to compare which one has the best bag of crisps. All the comparing is done inside one supermarket and often costumers have their preference for a certain supermarket as well, so the stores are mere competitors, there are no advantages for them whatsoever.








As expected almost all shops in the Kalverstraat are chains and the number of chains in the Kalverstraat is also larger than the one of the Houtstraat. In Haarlem we’ve still got quite some little independent shops like Jan van der Pigge, but there are also more catering businesses in the Houstraat which are primarily private. At the end of the Grote Houtstraat (near the Gasthuisvest and Raamsingel) many small private shops are located.









All the shops are used in the table, so if three shops have three branches, it’s the same chain.

In the Grote Houtstraat 90% of all the shops have only one branch, that means the supply is very varied. For that very reason the Grote Houtstraat was declared as the best shopping street of the Netherlands for a couple of years! On the other hand in the Kalverstraat many shops have different branches, one chain even has four branches.

Conclusion

The hypothesis for this sub-question was: The shops are relatively similar, however in the Kalverstraat more chain shops are situated and shops have several branches in the Kalverstraat, whereas they don’t in Haarlem.

For the greater part this hypothesis proved to be true. It is true with regard to the chain shops, for the percentage of chain shops is almost 10% higher. It is also correct that shops have more branches in the Kalverstraat than in the Grote Houtstraat, but that doesn’t mean that all shops in the Grote Houtstraat have merely one branch.
The shops are indeed largely similar, but in the Grote Houtstraat more service-shops are located and the percentage of non-attire shops is bigger than in the Kalverstraat. On the other hand in the Kalverstraat more shops are situated that sell almost only one very expensive item. Furthermore, in the Grote Houtstraat more catering businesses are situated, which partly explains why more shops in the Houtstraat are still private than in the Kalverstraat.